


Magnum Opus

by RebelSpaceOddity



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angels are Dicks (Supernatural), Apocalypse, End of the World, Haunted House, M/M, Work In Progress, slowburn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-01
Updated: 2019-06-01
Packaged: 2020-03-20 02:16:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,177
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18983170
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RebelSpaceOddity/pseuds/RebelSpaceOddity
Summary: While investigating a haunted house, Sam and Dean come across a very old, very evil artifact. So of course they open it and bring about the end of the world.Oh, and Dean still thinks all angels are dicks. Well, except Castiel. He's not so bad.





	Magnum Opus

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this while season 9 was airing and never finished it. It's been sitting in my drafts for years so I thought that maybe by posting it I would be inspired to continue writing.

“Dean.”  
  
Dean, of course, chose this moment to ignore Sam. What was the purpose of staying on the phone while they each scoped out different parts of the house if Dean was just going to go incommunicado? This was not how Sam had planned to spend a Friday night.

He should’ve known his jerkwad older brother wouldn’t focus and would screw up their careful infiltration of the haunted house. Emphasis on careful. They were dealing with the vengeful ghost of a Hunter, after all. Could even be a Spectre. It wasn’t like he could stab it with iron, burn the bastard’s bones, and call it a day.

“Dean,” Sam repeated into his phone, “we need to leave.” His brother was checking the upstairs rooms for possible hunter-remains while he checked the main floor, but something in his gut told him that they shouldn’t be there, that they needed to do more research before jumping into this hunt.

“C’mon, Sam, there’s gotta be clues or—I don’t know—something that will tell us where the bastard died.”

“Dean.”

“Alright, alright, if you’re going to be a whiner about it. We can come back tomorrow. In the daytime.”

“I’m not a whine—“

He should have been paying more attention to where he was walking, but sometimes his brother pissed him off so damn much that his common sense didn’t work so well. He stepped clean through a rotten floorboard; he felt his left foot dangling in empty air; his arms clawed at something—anything—to keep him from falling through the rest of the way. He failed. He landed with a thud and a thick layer of dust was thrown into the air and had him coughing. It hurt to cough, he realized, but it didn’t hurt his lungs. He moved his arm to cover his mouth and hissed in pain. “Shit,” he said, “shit! DEAN!”

His arm was definitely broken. And definitely in more than one place, judging from the bone that was sticking out of his forearm. Definitely fractured the ulna. Well, that was a surgery they couldn’t afford and a year’s worth of recovery time.

“Sammy!”

“Dean!” He could hear his brother’s thudding footsteps above him. “Dean! The floor is bad! Be careful!” The footsteps slowed and dulled. After years of sneaking around hunts and away from John Winchester, his brother could move like a mouse (though he rarely felt the need to). He saw his brother’s head appear above him.

“Sammy, you okay?”

“No, Dean, I broke my arm.”

“Are you sure?”

Sam held up his definitely compound-fractured arm. He hissed again from the pain. “Yep, I’m sure.”

“Shit, I’m going to go find something to haul you out with, okay, man?”

Sam struggled to sit up on his own without the use of his left arm. “No, wait, you can’t haul me out. This is a compound fracture; I can’t use it at all.”

Dean groaned. It was Dean-speak for “are you fucking kidding me?” Sam heard him plop down on the ground, and again Sam warned his brother about the crappy floorboards. He heard some shuffling and then, “Can you hear me from here?”

“Yeah,” he told his brother.

“Ok. So what do we do? “

It wasn’t like they could dial 9-1-1. Bringing in a swarm of paramedics into a questionably-stable environment with a pissed off ghost/possible spectre was a bad idea, and Sam knew it. Plus, they were breaking, entering, trespassing, and destroying private property. Even if they had their trusty fake FBI badges with them—which they didn’t because Sam had insisted that Dean would probably drop his—once Sam was admitted to a hospital, it was probably only a matter of time until someone figured out they were liars. Good, nobly intentioned liars, but liars nonetheless. No, they needed someone they could trust. Someone like—

“Garth,” Sam said, “Call Garth. He’s resourceful, and I bet he has a trustworthy doctor somewhere in his list of contacts.” He heard Dean get up and wander into the other room. He heard muffled voices and a “yeah, it’s pretty bad” and the return of Dean’s shuffling feet.

“Garth is sending help,” Dean said, “But it could take a while. How bad is it?”

Sam reluctantly examined his arm. Yup, still definitely broken. Definitely hurt like a bitch. Definitely in need of a thorough cleaning to prevent infection. “I need to clean this so it doesn’t get infected,” Sam told him, “Do we have a first aid kit?” If Sam had his way, there would be at least three kits in the trunk of “Baby.”

“Hold on, I’ll go look.”

After Dean left, Sam investigated the space he had, quite literally, fallen into. Well, investigated as best as he could without trying to get up or move his arm. The room, which was more like a lair, resembled something from the set of The Mummy. Boris Karloff, not Brendan Fraser, of course. But the more he looked the more he realized that everything was Greek to him. The walls, peeling and cracked, were classic Greek architecture. Grecian urns lined one wall and old, mostly rotten tapestries lined another; they were covered in what Sam was sure was depictions of ancient Greek warriors. It was strange, he thought, that a Hunter would keep so many Greek objects. The Dead Sea Scrolls would have been less of a surprising discovery. The strangest thing in the room, however, caught his eye. In one corner, on a low pedestal, was a lonely jar. The jar-urn-thingy was the simplest thing in the room. It was plain, it was brass, and it was also the only thing that had its own pedestal, which made it important. Or at least dangerous. Either way, Sam needed to get a closer look. Too bad he had to wait for his brother to get his ass down there to help him stand up.

“Sammy?”

“Still here.”

Dean’s head appeared in the hole in the floor. “I got something that will help. I don’t have any rope, but do you think you can catch it?”

“Dude, broken arm.” Which really did hurt like a bitch, not that Sam would say that aloud.

“Damn it.” Pause. “I’ll be back.”

Sam sighed. Dean was nothing if not resourceful. He’d find a way to get him whatever it was that he thought would help Sam’s arm, but Sam hated being useless. And with this arm, it looked like he might be useless for a long time, and that would make the macho big brother protective streak in Dean even more dominant than it already was. Sam would be smothered, he knew, but there was nothing to stop Dean from fussing over him. Dean, no matter much he’d deny it, was definitely a mother hen.  
Dean returned with an old musty bed sheet that he’d found upstairs. He shredded it to make a makeshift rope and tied a small parcel to it and carefully lowered it to where Sam could reach it. “Whiskey?” asked Sam, “Really?”

“Hey, man, you said you needed to clean that arm. That’s the strongest proof I had.”

Sam noticed the brand. “Jameson? Dean, this is expensive.”

“Sammy, it’s got the highest alcohol content. Don’t worry, I’ve got another bottle for me.” He held it up. Sam saw that it was a regular bottle of Jack Daniels, but he didn’t want to argue with his brother about a) why Dean had two bottles of whiskey on hand or b) why Dean shouldn’t waste the expensive booze on Sam’s mangled arm. Arguing with Dean was about as useful as arguing with a tree sometimes, although Sam was pretty sure he could get a word in edgewise with a tree.

Also in the parcel that Dean had lowered down were long strips of (hopefully) clean fabric. Upon closer inspection, Sam realized that it was formerly Dean’s favorite Led Zeppelin tee. Dean was more worried than Sam had realized. He uncapped the bottle of Jameson and poured a liberal amount on his shattered arm. The stinging alcohol had him making sounds that he knew Dean would tease him about later. Not now, not while they were in trouble, but later, in the comfort of a diner and with a cheeseburger in hand, Dean would give Sam hell for “crying like a little girl.” As best he could with one hand, Sam bound the wound to prevent more bleeding and created a makeshift sling. It would have to do until Garth’s reinforcements arrived in the next three to six hours. It was going to be a long night, and definitely not the kind of Friday night that Sam had signed up for.

“It’d be nice if we had a guardian angel with us right now,” Sam joked.

He instantly regretted it.

“You know he’s stuck up there,” Dean said. His voice was calm and held a tone of finality that said the topic was closed. Permanently. Like Blockbuster Video.

The thing about Winchesters was that they usually ignored the “Closed” sign on the front door, so Sam chose to ignore Dean’s barricade against the topic of Castiel. “Have you even tried praying for him?” asked Sam, “I could really use some of that angelic mojo right about now.”

Dean didn’t say anything, and Sam pictured his brother slumped next to the wall upstairs, hands resting on his knees, eyes staring at nothing in particular. When his brother finally spoke, all he said was, “I do try, but Cas can’t answer. Or won’t.” The flatness of the elder Winchester’s voice might have been mistaken for disinterest except for the fact that Sam knew that, concerning Castiel, Dean was anything but. The angel had only recently earned his wings back (although the process would be more accurately described as “fought tooth-and-nail through seven circles of hell to prove his worthiness to rejoin the celestial legions”), and he had immediately broken down the gates to Heaven and given Metatron an eviction notice. Dean assumed that the angels (Cas included) were Upstairs partying it up in their newly reclaimed home, but Sam was certain that a Heavenly Powwow was being held to establish a new chain of command—of which Castiel would most certainly have an opinion. The Fall had changed the Heavenly Host, and the Winchesters were not inclined to think that it was for the better. If Dean had thought angels were dicks before, he doubly did so now. Except for Castiel. Well, most of the time. Some days, Sam wanted to lock the two in a room until Dean and Cas fought out their problems, or to smash their heads together and command, “Now kiss!”

The pain from the broken arm must be affecting him more than he had thought, because Sam heard himself asking his brother, “Do you miss him?”

Shit. Rule #1 of being Dean’s brother: no chick flick moments. Well, oops.

“Dude, I’m not gonna talk about Cas. Right now, we gotta come up with a plan to get you outta that basement. Or whatever secret dungeon place you’ve fallen into. It’s not a sex dungeon, is it?”

“It’s not a sex dungeon. It’s got a bunch of old Greek artifacts though. Strange for a hunter, don’t you think?”

“Well, this was a strange dude…what if he can hear us? He’s around here somewhere, ya know? He could be ghost eaves-dropping or whatever the hell they do.”

“If an angry ghost were nearby, I think we would know.”

Dean was silent. Sam knew he’d struck a nerve by bringing up the angel, but Sam was more than a little tired of pussyfooting around the topic. Castiel had cemented himself into the Winchester world the instant he cradled Dean’s soul and pulled him out of hell. Dean may not want to acknowledge it, but Castiel was a permanent fixture in his life, just as much as Sam was. Sam knew that no matter how this all played out, this battle of good versus evil, that Castiel would be there at the end of it, standing right next to the Winchesters. Sam knew this as surely as he knew that Dean’s favorite color was blue.

Sam heard Dean unscrew the bottle of Jack Daniels. It probably wasn’t smart to be drinking while they were on a hunt, but Sam had learned the hard way not to comment on Dean’s drinking habits. Instead, Sam grabbed the bottle of Jameson again, uncapped it, and said, “Cheers.”

Half a bottle later and Dean was singing “Bad Company” loudly and really off-key. In retrospect, they probably should have been quiet, but as Sam had learned the night Dean had been sent to hell, his brother turned to classic rock when shit got really serious. Like now.

“It’s the wayyyyy I play! Dirty for dirty! Oh someone double-crossed me….BAD COMPANY!”

Thank Chuck Dean had never decided to pursue a musical career.

“Sammy, do you ever think about that night we sang Bon Jovi?”

More often than Sam cared to admit to. “Sometimes,” he said, “But that’s in the past now.”

Tipsy Dean, however, seemed willing to discuss one of the most painful nights of Sam’s life. “You know, sometimes I almost wish it had ended like that. Don’t make that bitch face I know you’re making. I’m not saying I’d want to go to hell again—God knows that I should be kissing Cas’s feet every day for the rest of eternity for pulling my sorry soul out—but I mean, well, I don’t know what I mean. But I went out how I wanted to, you know? I said goodbye to you, to Bobby, and I made my peace. The way we live, Sammy, there’s no guarantee that’s gonna happen again. I don’t wanna go out not fightin, you know?”

Sam knew. Sam knew well. His brother was a soldier, through and through. “It’s gonna end however it ends,” he told Dean, “Not much we can do about it.”  
“Except come back from the dead.”

He laughed. “Yes, we could always do that again.”

“How’s the arm?”

“It hurts.”

“Like a bitch?”

Sam gritted his teeth. He could almost hear Dean’s smirk. “Yeah, it hurts like a bitch.”

“Do you think you could move enough to get a better look down there? Is there anything we could use to get you out?”

Sam looked around again. “Nope. Not unless we’re on the hunt for a jar that magically turns into an escalator.”

Dean whistled. “That would be handy right about now. Rub the jar and see if it works.”

“That’s Aladdin’s lamp you’re thinking of.”

“It could work.”

“Not likely.”

Sam tried to get up but found it impossible to get his long legs underneath him without using his left arm. He got about halfway stood up before he toppled over. Thankfully, he fell on his rear rather than his injured arm, but he was less than thrilled to add “bruised butt” to his list of injuries.

“Sammy? You alright?”

“Yeah.” Sam decided that he might be able to stand up with the help of a wall. He scooted backwards, feeling embarrassingly like a caterpillar, until his back hit the nearest wall. He mentally vomited at the feeling of seventy-year old musty (and probably moldy) wallpaper, but using his thigh and abdominal muscles, managed to get on his feet.

This, he decided, was why P.E. coaches made kids do wall-sits in gym class.

He quickly made a more thorough investigation of the basement. He decided that “secret hunter lair” was probably a better description for the pit he’d fallen into. He peered at the tapestries and a few other Greek artifacts. Nope, not useful. He made his way over to the plain jar on the pedestal. He poked it. Nope. Not Aladdin’s lamp after all.

After realizing that there was nothing that would be useful in getting him back upstairs, he flopped back on the ground and began drinking the Jameson again. “We’re gonna be here a while,” he called up to his brother, “There is nothing down here that’s gonna get me out.”

“Figures. Drink up, Sammy boy.” He heard Dean uncap the bottle of Jack.

Sam realized that Dean was trying to get him drunk so he wouldn’t be able to feel the pain in his arm anymore. Sam knew he should stay alert, that he shouldn’t let the whiskey dull his senses, but his arm hurt too damn much for him to really care. “Where’d you get the bottle of Jameson anyway?” he asked his brother.

“Bought it a while ago. Was saving it for a special occasion.”

“What occasion?”

“Doesn’t matter now. At least it went to good use.”

Sam contemplated arguing that the bottle of Jack would have worked just as well, but returned to his earlier conclusion. Argument with Dean = argument with tree. Not worth the bother. He shivered. It was unusually chilly in this secret hunter lair. Hadn’t the man heard of space heaters?

He heard Dean get up and shuffle closer to the opening. Dean’s face peered over the side. “Hey, I’m going to go look around for minute? Since we’re here, might as well look for this bastard’s remains.”

“Dude, respect the dead. He was a hunter.”

Dean snorted. “An off-his-rocker hunter.” He left before Sam could give him Bitchface #3, which he reserved for Dean’s obnoxious moments.

Dean’s smart-ass tone aside, Sam knew he had a point. He wondered once again why a hunter would collect Greek artifacts. Not only collect, but hide in a secret room under the house. He looked around the room again. There had to be something here that was important, and it was probably the same reason the ghost was sticking around.

His eye was drawn again to the jar on the pedestal. That had to be it. Later, Sam would blame the Jameson, but right then it seemed like a good idea to get up and walk over to the jar-on-a-pedestal and try to open it. And that was how Sam learned what the ghost was protecting.

As his hand crept toward the ancient pottery, something akin to nails on a chalkboard shrieked in Sam’s ear. “GET OUT!” the voice bellowed, “GET OUT!”

Well, wasn’t this as stereotypical as it could get. And wouldn’t it just figure that Dean had left him without any salt or iron. Sam’s bad luck had reared its ugly head again.  
Before Sam could defend himself, he felt the slithering sensation of the ghost entering his body. “No,” Sam said. He struggled against the ghost and realized it was a losing battle. Apparently the ghost retained some of his hunter knowledge in the afterlife and used that to his advantage. After a few minutes, Sammy was in the backseat of his own mind, and the spook didn’t have the decency to let him look out the window.

He wondered how long it would take Dean to figure out that he wasn’t himself.

If, no when, he got out of this, he was going to kick Dean’s ass for bringing whiskey on the job. Had he been sober, this never would have happened. He was pretty sure. Mostly sure. Kind of sure. Either way, Dean was going to be the recipient of Bitchface #1: the you’re-such-an-asshole face.

On the upside, his arm didn’t hurt anymore. Sam considered this to be a small item on the “pro” side of the situation. On the con side? He’d compound-fractured his arm, gotten stuck in a hunter’s dungeon (not a sex dungeon) and been possessed by a ghost who was doing Chuck-knows-what with Sam’s body.

He felt constricted, like Kaa from _The Jungle Book_ was coiled around his body, even though he didn’t really have a body right at the moment. He wriggled, well, as close to wriggling as a disembodied person could get, and managed to loosen the ghost’s grip just a bit. Just enough for him to have a sliver of perception of the outside world. It wasn’t like when Gadreel had taken the steering wheel of Sam’s mind; that had felt like he was Edward Norton in _Fight Club_.

“Sammy?” he heard Dean say, “I found a ladder up here. It’s probably ten-feet? Think that’s enough?”

Sam knew it wasn’t but he heard himself say, “That should be adequate. Thank you.” 

“Do you think you could set it up if I drop it down there?”

Sam, though trapped inside his own mind, knew that would never work. His arm was broken in at least two places; there was no way he’d be able to set up a ladder one-handed. But he heard his voice say anyway, “Yes, of course.”

“Mmkay. Hold on.” Dean shuffled away and Sam strained to hear his brother clanging and banging around upstairs. Obviously his brother didn’t pay enough attention to his speech patterns to realize that he didn’t normally talk like he had a stick up his ass. Well, not since Gadreel had vacated the premises.

“Exorcizamus te, omnis immundus spiritus omnis satanica potestas, omnis incursion infernalis adversarii, omnis legio,omnis congregatio et secta diabolica…”

He felt rumbling in his chest, deep and vulgar. “You cannot exorcise me,” Sam’s voice said, “I am no demon. Nor am I evil.”

“I knew that,” said Dean, “I also knew that a hunter—ghost or not—would recognize the Rituale Romanum. So tell me, what are you doing inside my brother? Wow. That’s a question that I never thought I’d ask.”

So ghosts couldn’t be exorcized. Well, that settled an argument that he and Dean had had almost a decade earlier.

“I am the guardian,” said the ghost. Did his voice really sound that creepy or was that just because of the spirit possessing him?

“The guardian of what?” asked Dean.

The ghost hissed. It was a strange feeling to be so aware of the oxygen slowly being expunged of your own lungs, and to Sam’s current powerless self, it felt like squeezing the toothpaste from the bottom of the tube.

“It cannot be named,” said the ghost.

“Well, then, we promise not to touch anything and we’ll just leave. So get the hell out of Sam.”

“This body suits me for my guardianship.”

“Know what else suits your guardianship? Being an incorporeal bastard.”

“Being incorporeal does not suit the purpose of my guardianship.”

“Get out of my brother, you son of a—,” Dean was interrupted by the ghost screeching in Greek. Sam couldn’t make out much other than the words pithos and chamenos. When…if he got his body back, he was going to be spending some time with the books. Greek was not his forte. -

The extreme bizarreness of the situation was not lost on Sam. A hunter who collected Greek artifacts? Who spoke stilted language like Castiel? Not to mention there wasn’t a lick of salt in the house. Just what kind of hunter was this guy anyway? Sam was certain that this involved that jar for some reason, but why would the ghost guard a jar? Yes, this was definitely a question for the books. And Google.

When the ghost finished screeching, Dean called down, “Hey, tough guy, you do realize that as long as you’re in Sam’s body, you’re stuck, right?”

Sam realized that Dean had a point. As long as the ghost inhabited his body, he was stuck in this weird Greek dungeon. Sam also realized that if the ghost left his body, it could attack his brother. He wondered what Dean’s end-game was. He just had to trust his brother and see what would happen next.

The ghost didn’t leave his body, at least not right away. Dean said, “Take your time. I ain’t going anywhere without my brother.” The ghost wasn’t happy; Sam could feel it. It wanted to strike out—to lash and slash and cut and kill—but more than that, Sam could feel its desperation. It was desperate to get them out of the house—outoutoutoutoutOUT it screamed in his mind, the voiceless shrieks echoing throughout Sam’s skull like a bullet’s ricochet. If this ghost had truly been a hunter in life like Garth had said—and Sam was beginning to doubt that more by the second—then it was the most unusual hunter they’d ever encountered. And that included Garth.

Sam couldn’t tell how long this impasse lasted. Minutes? Hours? Days? Okay, probably not days. The ghost paced back and forth in his body, like a caged panther, restless and bristling with discontent.

“Get out,” said Sam’s voice.

“Get out of my brother first.”

“You do not know what you ask,” said the ghost, “My guardianship is more important than your brother.”

“Not to me.”

The ghost laughed, a bitter and inhuman sound that reminded Sam of a hyena’s cackle. “I see the thoughts of your brother,” said the ghost, “I see his mind. He can hear us, you know. Not like the time when he had the angel trapped within him.”

Sam winced. Well, emotionally anyway. He knew, logically, that Dean had only accepted Gadreel’s offer in order to save his life, but deep down, he still questioned everything Dean told him. Trusting his brother wasn’t so easy anymore.

“Sam knows why I did that,” said Dean, “And no amount of sorry is going to take back what I did. Get out of my brother.”

“You protected him,” said the ghost, “But perhaps it would have been better to let him die. Maybe that is what…Samuel…really wanted. That is what I can give him now. He can be at rest, and I can continue my guardianship.”

“Your guardianship can kiss my sweet ass because that isn’t going to happen.”

“What will you do about it, mortal?”

Mortal? This was definitely not the average hunter. He sounded more like the Mummy every minute. A weird, Greek mummy.

“At least I’m not dead and playing Invasion of the Body Snatchers.” quipped Dean.

The ghost chuckled. “Your humorous cultural references are just a cover for your fear. Sam knows it, so I know it. You are filled with fear. You should not fear me, mortal. I will not harm you so long as I can continue my guardianship.”

“Again with this ‘guardianship’ crap. Know what? I call bullshit.”

The ghost hissed. “My guardianship is more important than your puny life.”

“Seriously?” said Dean. “Seriously? No offense to your incorporeal ass, but you don’t know shit about my life. Me and Sammy? We’ve seen things, done things. Some, I ain’t to proud of, but others, well, look in Sammy’s head and see if there’s a single being in heaven and hell that don’t know the name ‘Winchester.’ That’s for a reason. You think I’m going to let some guardian tell me that he’s keeping my brother? Well, that’s just not how it works. Me and Sammy? We’re a team. And I will kick your ass to hell’s front door before I let you stay in Sam’s body. So, for the last time: Get. Out.”

The ghost’s rage ripped through Sam’s body, and the younger Winchester couldn’t help but be reminded of a cornered cat lashing out with its claws. Then suddenly the rage was gone, replaced by the ripping of the ghost’s presence from Sam’s body. He was sure that there were claw marks in his mind, but so immense was his relief that the ghost had left his body that he almost forgot to warn Dean.

“Dean,” he croaked. (Really? How had the ghost made him sound so evil and gravelly?)

A bag of rock salt fell next to him. “Circle up, Sammy,” Dean said, “Let’s keep that ghost out of you.”

If Sam’s arm had hurt before, it did so doubly now. When the ghost had left his body, he’d collapsed onto his bad arm and probably broken it even more, if that was possible. The Led Zeppelin tee that he’d used to bandage it was nowhere in sight, and the wound was encrusted with bits of wallpaper, dirt, and probably Greek mummy dust. Pushing aside the pain, Sam opened the bag of salt and quickly drew a circle around him with it. Well, it looked more like an oval, but he hoped it would work the same.

“Okay,” said Sam, “But what about you?”

“Really, Sam? I’ve been up here salted the whole time. Just had to get the spook outta you and give him no one else to snuggle up with.”

“Well, if you’d left me some salt in the first place—,”

“C’mon, Sam, are we really gonna argue about this? We screwed up. It’s over. Let’s just wait for Garth to get here.”

“Fine.”

Sam knew it wasn’t fine. He also knew that his arm really fucking hurt and he didn’t want to argue with his brother when he could sit there and stew in self-pity. Except stewing wasn’t Sam’s style.

“Did you find the guy’s remains?” asked Sam. It was a lame change of subject, but it did the trick.

“Nope,” said Dean. “I’ve gone through the place. Twice. If this guy died here, his corpse spontaneously combusted.”

“But then the ghost wouldn’t be a problem.”

“Shut up.”

“Bitch.”

“Jerk.”

Sam laughed. He couldn’t help it. Sometimes his relationship with his brother dwindled down to nothing more than half-hugs and playground insults, but in the end, Dean was the only thing that consistently made sense to Sam, the only solvable equation in a calculus textbook from Mars.

He could almost hear Dean’s smirk as he said, “Good to know some things never change, huh?”

“No,” Sam said, “Some things never will.”

Dean's phone began to play 'Pretty Fly For A White Guy.' “Hey, Garth.”

“You’re kidding me,” said Sam, “The Offspring? Really? I didn’t even know you listened to anything post-1985.”

“Shut up.” Pause. “No, not you, Garth.” Pause. “Yeah, well, the damn spook possessed Sam so we’re—no he’s not still possessed—yes, I’m sure—no, ice cream won’t help—is that even a question—Garth—I—seriously—GARTH!”

Sam pictured his brother’s face as he spoke on the phone with Garth and the sudden urge to cackle was almost unbearable. His brother had never been overly fond of the sort-of-Bobby-replacement, but he could only imagine Dean’s impatience when trapped in a salt circle, slightly tipsy, with a crazed ghost on the loose.

“No, really, Garth, we’re fine—yes, I know Sam has a compound fracture; I’m the one who told you—yes, I realize we screwed up.” Pause. “Look can you give me an ETA or not?” Pause. “Oh.” He heard Dean groan and assumed that Garth had delivered bad news.

“Dean, what’s going on?”

“Garth’s here.”

“Why didn’t he just say so?”

“Because he’s Garth.”

“Right.”

A few minutes later the Winchesters heard the front door bang open and Latin chanting fill the silence. Sam was beginning to wonder if he should’ve let the ghost keep possessing him.

“Dean!” exclaimed Garth, “Good to see ya, man.”

“Watch out for the—,”

Crash. Thud. Dust swarmed into Sam’s face after Garth landed in the dungeon room a few feet away from him. Unfortunately for Garth, during his fall his feet had caught on one of the Greek tapestries. He was now swaddled in a centuries-old fabric that was probably more dust than material. To Garth’s credit, his scream was a full octave lower than Sam would have expected.

“Sam? Garth? Are you alright?” Dean called down.

“I’m fine.” Sam yelled back, “Not sure about Garth yet. I think he knocked himself out for a minute.”

“I’m going to run out to Garth’s car and see what I can get to help, okay? Stay in the salt circle, Sammy.”

Sam huffed. As if Dean would follow the same advice. “Okay,” he said reluctantly.

The lump of musty fabric that was Garth wiggled slightly.

“Garth?”

Garth groaned and rolled over, further entangling himself in the disgusting tapestry. “That floor is bad,” Garth said.

“We know,” said Sam, “That’s how I ended up down here in the first place. Are you hurt?”

Garth shook his head. “No, just bruised I think. This fabric must’ve broken my fall, thank God for that.”

Sam wasn’t sure that Garth should thank anyone that he’d gotten wrapped up in the Shroud of Hepatitis C, but he just said, “Maybe you should come over here. There’s a rogue spook on the loose. I have some more salt."

“Okay.”

Garth attempted to unroll himself from the musty fabric, but wasn’t having much success. After falling over for the third time, he looked at Sam with big pleading eyes. “I may need help,” he admitted.

Sam was reluctant to leave his salt circle, but in the end he crawled over to Garth because he knew the skinny guy would do the same for him. He tugged on the tapestry, mentally vomiting as his fingers touched it, and Garth wriggled, trying to free himself. However, he inadvertently freed skeletal remains that had also been wrapped in the cloth. The skeleton promptly fell on Garth. Garth screamed again—at a much higher octave, Sam noticed—and jerked away from the skeleton, causing the living man and the remains to become horizontally cheek-to-cheek. If Dean could only see this, Sam thought, he would have a half dozen “horizontal tango” quips to throw at poor Garth.  
Then Sam realized what, or actually who, the skeleton belonged to. “Garth, I need you to get away from that skeleton right now.”

“I’m trying.”

“No, damn it Garth, right NOW!”

Recognition dawned on the man’s face. “Oh,” he breathed. He continued fighting the damn tapestry and finally Sam just reached out with his good arm and yanked as hard as he could. He heard the fabric rip, and a great cloud of what really probably was skeletal dust poofed into the air, but Garth was free.

“Wow,” said Garth, “I guess your biceps aren’t just for show.”

“What?”

“I said—,”

Garth didn’t finish his sentence because at that precise moment the air chilled around them and Sam saw the other man flinch violently. 

“This is a better vessel for my guardianship,” hissed the ghost in Garth’s voice. Sam noticed that the ghost was trying to do the deep raspy voice with Garth’s vocal cords, but it wasn’t succeeding very well. “This vessel is not damaged,” it said.

Of course, Dean would be gone at this moment, when Garth was possessed and Sam had located the ghost’s remains. He had salt, but no lighter, so there wouldn’t be any salt n’ burns…yet. He retreated to his salt circle, feeling slightly cowardly.

“Will you hide behind a line of salt for all of eternity?” asked the ghost, “My offer still stands: if you allow me to continue my guardianship, you may leave in peace.”

“That’s not going to happen,” said Sam, “Garth may be a little odd, but he’s a friend. You can’t have him.”

The ghost chuckled. “You will not stay so stubborn forever, Sam Winchester. I’ve seen your mind. I have seen the worst of you, and you will abandon him if it saves your life. You are not your brother. You are not the Righteous Man. You have no conviction. You are empty.”

The spook’s words hit him like a punch to the stomach, leaving him scrambling for words and unsteady on his feet. “You can’t have him,” he said again. He wished his voice sounded more even, not feeble like an old man’s.

The ghost laughed. “You cannot stop me. The guardianship must be maintained.”

The guardianship. What was the guardianship? Sam realized too late that he said that aloud.

“I was made guardian by the sons of Gaea, and in her name I have sworn the most binding of oaths,” it said, “My guardianship has lasted since before Helios first chased his chariot across the sky, and so it shall remain until Gaea release me.”

“So all this stuff is Greek,” Sam muttered, “I knew it.”

The ghost moved closer to Sam, and the Winchester could see that Garth’s eyes had glossed to white completely. He knelt down and began to blow on the line of salt that surrounded Sam, destroying the circle. Sam looked for the bag of salt and realized that it was outside the circle and too far away for him to reach. Where was Dean? This was about the time when Dean was supposed to jump in last-minute and do something rash and irritating to distract the ghost. The ghost stood up and stared at him with Garth’s pupil-less eyes. “I have lived thousands of years,” it told him, “I will live thousands more. No matter your name, you will not move me from my purpose.”

“Oh yeah?” called Dean’s voice, “Then why did you die in the first place?”

There was Dean, just in time to be brash and irritating. The ghostly Garth glared up in Dean’s general direction. “It was not my choice to perish. I was cursed by a witch. My form decayed but my soul lived on. Now that I have a new form, I will not make the same mistake again. The oath cannot be broken.”

“Hello? You’re still dead.” Dean waved his arm across the opening in the floor, and Sam could see something glistening in his brother’s palm. A cigarette lighter. Time to salt and burn. “And you know what else? I think you’ve still forgotten that you are stuck down in that hole unless you have some spooky guardian friends that will come haul your ass out. By the time you figure out how to get out of there, my brother and I will have kicked your sorry ass. Now, Garth, he’s not exactly what I’d call a good hunter, but he’s a friend, and I’m not leaving him behind to deal with your stick-in-the-ass personality. So, dead guy, you may want to rethink your options.”

As Dean taunted the ghost, Sam edged toward the skeleton. He picked up the bag of salt and discreetly poured some on the extremely-rotted corpse. He flashed Dean a quick thumbs-up and stepped in front of the ghost-Garth. The ghost screeched and pushed Sam on his broken arm. Sam winced in pain, but still managed to catch the lighter that Dean tossed down to him. He heard his brother toss down the half-empty bottle of Jack Daniels, which shattered on and around the corpse. Sam flipped open the lighter and tossed it onto the tattered tapestry-covered skeleton.

The ghost screamed as it was ripped from Garth’s body. The sound was a cacophony of discordant sound and despair. Unlike other ghosts the Winchesters had salted and burned, this one did not scream and waste away in a shower of flames and ash. Well, it screamed, but instead of disintegrating, the ghost folded in on itself, like cells dividing, until nothing remained.

“Well, that’s not normal,” Dean remarked.

Sam agreed. Nothing was normal about this case, nothing at all. He fully intended on doing some research about this “guardianship,” but for now, his arm really hurt. “Dean, can we get outta here?” he asked.

“Sure thing, Sammy boy. But first, you have to wake up Sleeping Beauty.”

Garth had passed out face-down into the basement floor. He’d probably broken his nose. Sam rolled him over, carefully using his good arm, and slapped him lightly on the face. “Hey, wake up,” he said, “It’s time to go.”

“No, just ten more minutes.”

He could hear Dean’s laughter reverberating off the walls. He slapped Garth again. “Wake up.”

Garth peeked one eye open. “I don’t like this dream. You’re not Xena.”

“You’re right. I’m not. Get up.”

Garth got up, and Dean lowered down the rope ladder that Garth had brought with him. “This isn’t ideal,” said Dean, “But it’ll have to do. Garth, you climb up here, and then I’ll climb down and help Sam.”

Garth did as he was told. When Dean got down to the dungeon, he had brought down another rope. “I have a feeling I’m going to have to pull your gigantor ass outta here,” he explained. Sam tried to climb the rope ladder, but his broken arm wouldn’t allow him to get very far. “Yeah, pulley system it is,” Dean said. He tied one end of the rope to Sam and climbed back upstairs to help Garth pull his brother out.

On a whim, Sam grabbed the jar from the pedestal. He cradled it close to his body as Dean and Garth pulled him out of the dungeon/basement. Finally, he flopped onto the floor, and Dean pulled him out of the room, away from any other rotten floorboards. “Diet,” Dean wheezed, “Diet.”

“Shut up.”

Garth said, “I think we should go to the hospital. Sam’s arm doesn’t look so good.”

It was true. Sam’s arm looked terrible—like it had gotten in a fight with a lawn mower and lost. “It does hurt,” he admitted.

“Like a bitch?”

Sam gritted his teeth. “Yes,” he said, “like bitch.”

As Dean and Garth put away their equipment in the Impala and Garth’s truck, Sam looked back at the no-longer-haunted house. He still held that jar in his good hand. He knew the adrenaline would be wearing off soon, and when it did, he’d probably pass out from the pain of his fractured arm. He wondered if the ghost was really guarding something important, or if it was just the ramblings of a recently-departed mad man? “I suppose we’ll never know now,” he muttered. He looked at the jar. There was a short inscription on the lid. Definitely ancient Greek. After he got his arm sorted out, he’d work on translating it.

His brother came up next to him. “You okay?” he asked.

“My arm is still broken. I was possessed again. By a ghost. That house—it has more questions than answers.”

“C’mon, man, it’s not so bad. It’s just a bad night, okay?” Dean looked uncomfortable. Neither Winchester liked what the ghost had been saying about them, but neither was willing to admit it. “Let’s just forget about it? We screwed up. It’s nobody’s fault.”

“The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves,” Garth piped in.

Sam and Dean stared at him blankly. “What the hell does that mean?” Dean asked.

 Garth looked embarrassed. “Um, Shakespeare? Julius Caesar?” Dean looked at him blankly. “Seriously? The most famous writer in the English language? No? Nothing?”

"I know who damn Shakespeare is,” grumbled Dean, “I saw that one version…with the dude from Titanic.”

And with Dean still grumbling about how “stupid old dead white guys wrote boring books anyway,” the Winchesters got in the Impala and followed Garth to a nearby doctor that Garth swore would “fix Sam right up.”

The house, now empty of all ghosts, loomed at the top of the hill, like a warning or a bad memory, until it shimmered, folded in on itself, and disappeared.

**Author's Note:**

> I've got a few more chapters of this written...if you're interested in seeing more, tell me in the comments! I haven't written anything on this in years so please motivate me to keep going!


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